The field of the present invention is medical treatment and, in particular, devices and methods for prompting and recording medical events as in the treatment of urinary incontinence.
It is estimated that 10% of the population of the United States suffer from some degree of urinary incontinence. The two most common causes of urinary incontinence, genuine stress incontinence (GSI) and detrusor instability (DI), make up over 90% of the cases of urinary incontinence. Bladder retraining drills (BRD) are one of the non-surgical treatment methods for urinary incontinence. BRD are based on the assumption that conscious efforts to suppress sensory stimuli will reestablish cortical control of an uninhibited bladder. The technique of BRD involves increasing the capacity of the bladder by gradually prolonging the intervals between voiding. Patients with urinary incontinence (either GSI or DI) tend to void frequently in an effort to keep their bladders from becoming full, which they feel will decrease the quantity of leakage during episodes of incontinence. These patients, however, tend to develop an increased sense of urgency at smaller bladder volumes. By gradually increasing voiding intervals and therefore bladder capacity, a majority of patients with urge incontinence will have either significant improvement or report complete cure of their symptoms.
BRD requires that the patient clearly understand the methods recommended to accomplish BRD to accurately record their progress. Close supervision by health care personnel is essential. A common problem encountered by physicians who prescribe this treatment is patient confusion with the directions for BRD and forgetfulness with the prescribed timing for and recording of voiding.
Portable electronic medical event reminder and monitoring devices have been used to prompt and record events involved in medical treatment. E.g., U.S. Pat. No. 4,504,153 by Schollmeyer et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 4,490,71 1 by Johnston; and U.S. Pat. No. 4,293,845 by Villa-Real. Notwithstanding, the prior art does not allow a patient to input an event, such as a urinary leakage, which falls outside of the pre-determined schedule. In addition, the prior art does not disclose apparatus and methods for changing the pre-determined schedule based on a patient's progress to date to train the patient to reach a desired target.
Accordingly, there is a need for simple devices and methods to prompt a patient of scheduled medical events, and to record both scheduled and non-scheduled medical events. In addition, there is a need for simple devices and methods for changing the pre-determined schedule for a medical event based on a patient's progress to date to train the patient to reach a desired target.